1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hopper apparatus incorporated, for example, in a filter cigarette manufacturing machine and adapted temporarily to store filter rods as rod members.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a filter cigarette manufacturing machine, which is called a filter attachment, filter cigarettes are manufactured by connecting filters to cigarettes. More specifically, in the filter attachment, a filter plug is first interposed between each two cigarettes which are arranged Coaxially. The two cigarettes and the filter plug are connected to one another by being wrapped in a paper piece, whereupon a double-size filter cigarette is prepared. Thereafter, the double-size cigarette is cut in the center of the filter plug to be divided into two equal parts or regular filter cigarettes.
The filter plug is obtained by cutting each of filter rods, taken out one after another from a hopper, into pieces with a predetermined length.
In recent years, there is a tendency for the operation speed of modern filter attachments to be increased for higher-efficiency filter cigarette production. Accordingly, the number of filter rods taken out from the hopper per unit time, that is, filter rod consumption, also increases.
It is to be desired, therefore, that a large number of filter rods should be previously stored in the hopper. To attain this, however, the hopper requires a large capacity, inevitably entailing an increase in size of the filter attachment itself.
Despite the large capacity, the hopper can store only a limited number of filter rods. When the residual filter rods in the hopper run short, therefore, the hopper must be replenished with new filter rods.
If the hopper replenishment speed is too low, storing a predetermined quantity of filter rods in the hopper takes a long time. If the speed of taking out the filter rods from the hopper or filter rod consumption speed is too high, moreover, the operation of the filter attachment must be suspended until the resupply of the filter rods is completed. Thus, the operating efficiency of the filter attachment is inevitably lowered.